


Saint Nicholas Day

by T Verano (t_verano)



Series: December, This Time Around [4]
Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: 2015 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "Saint Nicholas Day", Backstory for Jim, Christmas fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2020-04-19 17:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19137286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Jim gets to the cabin, and finds he's brought along a surprise from Blair.





	Saint Nicholas Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "Saint Nicholas Day"

The drive up to the cabin would've been better with Blair along, but still, every mile Jim had put between his rented SUV and the city had been a balm to his senses.

A balm to his soul; he might as well admit that. And somehow, admitting that was easier now that he was standing here in the clearing outside the cabin, with the ground lightly dusted with snow and nothing but wilderness stretching out for miles around him.

Blair was right: he'd needed this. He needed it even if he couldn't have Blair here with him the whole time.

It took him too many trips to haul everything from the SUV into the cabin, and where had all this extra crap come from, anyway? Jim sure as hell hadn't packed this much himself. 

He certainly hadn't packed the box with "Open this today" scrawled on its side in Blair's handwriting. Inside the box —

…inside the box was a sock. A large, white, brand-new-looking athletic sock, stuffed with things that made it bulge, tied off at the top with one of Blair's hair ties.

A note was attached to one end of the tie. "I know this is supposed to be a shoe, but geez, Jim, I didn't want to use a _used_ shoe, right? So Happy Saint Nicholas Day — don't have too much fun without me, okay?"

Saint Nicholas Day. Christ. He hadn't remembered, but Blair had; had remembered not only the date, but Jim's walk down memory lane one day last year when something — kids playing with marbles in a park, actually — had taken him back to the years his mom was still around. 

She'd been… fun. And full of things to celebrate, holidays she'd made a big deal of even though nobody else Jim knew had ever heard of them. Saint Nicholas Day had been one of those holidays; she'd had him and Stevie put their shoes outside their bedroom doors the night before, and in the morning they'd always woken up to find the shoes filled with plastic action figures and SuperBalls and marbles. The three of them would have an early breakfast together before his dad got up — chocolate-chip and banana pancakes, and instant hot cocoa, the kind of cocoa that had tiny fake marshmallows floating on top — and she'd tell them things she'd read about Saint Nicholas and Sinterklaas and Santa Claus. It was like a little bit of Christmas came early every year. 

Then she'd left and there hadn't been any more Saint Nicholas Days.

Until now. Jim picked up the sock and undid the tie, then started pulling things out. And laughed, when the first thing he pulled out was a little plastic Batman. An even smaller plastic Robin followed, and a bag of marbles, a couple of envelopes of cocoa mix — the kind with the little marshmallows, Jesus — and a banana.

And — Jim had to laugh again — a tube of banana-flavored lube, with "For Next Weekend" written on its label.


End file.
